Your Next Truck Is a Computer. Congress Noticed.

The trucks rolling into my shop today have more lines of code in them than the first space missions did. That is not an exaggeration, and it is changing what maintenance even means. It is also why there is now a bill in Congress specifically about the security of connected vehicles.

Where the industry is headed

The manufacturers are leaning all the way into this. One automaker just laid out a plan for a wave of lower-cost vehicles built around connected technology. Cheaper trucks are good news for a fleet budget, but every connected system is also a door that has to be locked.

The bill trying to keep up

Here is the legislation. It is early, still in committee, but the fact that it exists at all tells you lawmakers are starting to treat vehicles the way they treat any other networked device. For anyone maintaining these systems, that is worth understanding now.

My honest take: the technology is moving faster than the rules, and that gap is where the real risk lives. I would rather see this figured out before something goes wrong than after.

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